The voice under all silences. Chapter 12

[pekeleke]

THE VOICE UNDER ALL SILENCES. Chapter 12

The place was quiet. So utterly, deafeningly silent that he fancied it to be abandoned altogether.

He'd woken about an hour ago, black eyes popping open with the startled anxiety of the frightened. But there had been no danger. No reason at all to fear the empty walls, the empty room, the empty... everything... Beige assaulted his reeling senses like a weapon. It offended him with it's blandness, challenged him to find -if he could- the most minute, insignificant clue about the true personality of the flat's owner amid all this... nothingness.

Someone... No. Not someone, it could have only been Potter after all, had placed a thick pillow under his head. A soft butter-cream colored fleece had been carefully tucked around him. It felt somewhat invasive to discover that he'd been... managed... by the brat while he slept. He was still on the sofa and his odd clothes were still there. All of them, right down to the flimsy socks, but he could not shake off the notion that he'd been... put to sleep like a young child...

He felt rested, though, and quite hungry. The light that was filtering in through the pale curtains indicated that he must have slept all evening and all night... He was loath to abandon his safe, yellow cocoon. This place of warmth and silence that he'd found himself inhabiting this morning. So he stayed were he was and studied the awful walls, wondering idly why was it that they were so... empty. Why was it that the frighteningly intense creature that Potter seemed to have grown into had ended up here, in this... blank canvas. Trapped within walls and ceilings that held no life whatsoever.

He missed the busy bustle of his hospital room. Missed the comforting presence of the staff as they went about their duties just outside his door. He craved the simple certainty of knowing exactly when the next meal would arrive, when the next potion.

He missed the fact that Draco and Luc, or even Minnie had been able to push open the door and come to visit at any time. He wondered if Potter would allow the Malfoys to come here. Attempted to imagine what possible excuse the boy could use to convince them to stay away and felt somewhat relieved by his own conclusion that there was no way that Luc wouldn't be able to see past the auror's tricks.

Soft footsteps echoed suddenly down the corridor. The muted sound of barefooted feet trying to be quiet, as they carefully traveled over miles and miles of carpet, reached him clearly. For a second he was tempted to play dead, close his eyes and let the menace think him asleep... Then his empty stomach growled and he sighed. He'd have to confront the jerk sometime, start this new and strange life of his and see where it'd lead him...

"You are awake..."

The words were whispered in the quiet. They sounded soft and dazed, as if imbued by their speaker with the same wonder that he'd grant a full-blown miracle.

Potter had come to a standstill by the arched entryway to the main living area.

He wore nothing but a disreputable pair of faded red pajama pants. His bare chest was indecorously exposed and his jaw was shadowed with the kind of inky stubble that made him look... well, far too relaxed. Severus himself felt mortifyingly embarrassed. Unused, as he was, to dealing with the presence of anyone who'd so carelessly parade around in such indecently improper state of undress.

The boy, though, was obviously at ease. He was waiting for some sort of answer to his greeting, gaze firmly fixed upon him with a look that made those soft, green eyes shine like jewels.

"Yes. I... It seems I've slept the whole night away. I'm sorry"

Wild dark hair wobbled all around the young golden features that were breaking into a smile and a fond expression lit up the unfamiliarly mature visage of the boy he'd once taught.

"I suspect you needed the rest, Severus. It's not as if there are urgent matters for you to attend to, in any case. Now... I was going to make myself some coffee. Would you care for a cup?"

"Coffee?" His nose wrinkled in distaste as the name of that awful beverage abandoned his pursed lips. He could not help the dismayed reaction to that most unwelcome offering and was utterly disconcerted by the laughter it provoked.

Potter neared him with that new grace that he'd acquired at some point in recent years, a small shrug of his wide shoulders and another gruff-toned chuckle accompanied his approach as his legs easily devoured the space that separated them.

"You are just like old Malfoy, I see. He told me so himself, of course, but I hoped that you wouldn't turn out to be as kin on the boiled water as he is. Are you also going to explode into an ode for the wonderful englishness of a finely brewed cup of tea?"

Severus froze at the casualness of this... this strange conversation they were having. He was not used to being... teased... by anyone. Least of all first thing in the morning by a half-dressed enemy.

He could certainly imagine Luc whining about the coffee and the image brought him both comfort and longing. He wished his friend was here to guide him through the confusing uncertainty of his new situation. Step into the breach, whenever his own feet faltered, and see him reach safe harbor...

Luc had always excelled at social adaptation. He understood without much prompting all the mysterious cues that Severus himself missed and was always the one to take the lead, whenever they'd been required to navigate through the sometimes dangerous territory that another's expectations could become. Whether the expectations in question had been those of a ministry toady, a foreign diplomat or the Dark Lord himself, Luc had always, always, managed to bring them back out alive...

"Severus?"

Potter had knelt beside the sofa, while he wrestled with his thoughts, and now all that positively indecent amount of bare chest was far too close for his comfort.

Dark eyes clashed with quiet green and they both reeled. There was utter, fierce, sheer tenderness within that achingly similar copy of Lily's verdant gaze...

"Do you want tea, then?"A hand rose up to his face and his long, black hair was gently held before being looped, lazily, around a tanned index finger while the boy idly searched his increasingly discomfited expression:

"I have plenty of it, I promise. It's about the only thing that's actually ready, you see?. Malfoy was most insistent about the tea."

Severus didn't want to play whatever game the child thought he was playing. He swung his legs off the sofa, almost kicking the miscreant right in the shoulder, and the auror was just... forced... to let go of his hair.

Potter scuttled backwards hastily, holding his body away from the blandly colored carpet with one hand splayed on the floor, behind himself. He ended up half laying at the foot of the seat, with both knees bent upwards and his chest exposed, gazing up with bright green eyes that were suddenly alive with playful mirth...

The position was somewhat open and intimate. An unguarded, trusting half-fall that left him exposed to Severus' own intentions. He could kick the boy flat to the floor with very little effort, after all. Push his sock-covered foot against that chest, then move it upwards to crush the exposed throat under his heel...

"I take it you don't want the tea, either?. You could have said, you know?. There's no need to throw me down on to the floor and... loom... like that all over me. I'll give you whatever you want, Severus, as soon as you ask for it"

He blinked at the words. The violence of his own thoughts simply... dissolved... under the bewilderingly inappropriate insinuations that, for a second of utter madness, he was actually convinced laid beneath the auror's rather mundane complaint. He was so stressed by the unusual situation that he could not even think of a response. His eyes clashed, once again, with the brat's own. Ebony depths flashing with sheer panic before he decided to raise blindly from the seat and just... stood there: protective ward flashing blue warnings all along his left arm. Long hair tangled and dark eyes widened with a frantic and terrible anxiety. He began to search wildly for a route back towards safety, desperately trying to ignore the convoluted mess of echoing thoughts that screamed unformed warnings within his mind...

"Severus?"

Potter rose so fast, so effortlessly, that he took a startled step sideways, keeping the auror at arm-length while his dark eyes shot all around the room in search of something that could help him escape, but they found nothing. Because there was nothing, nothing, here... The whole place was beige and empty. A black hole mercilessly filled with the absence of everything that could have so easily turned these four walls into a home. It was devoid of both lamps and heavy decorations, of flower vases or a fire poker... Devoid, even, of the blasted child's broom!. There was nothing here that he could wield as a weapon. Nothing that could be of any help to him at all...

"The bathroom is down the corridor" Surprisingly, it was the boy himself who came to his rescue with a strange, flattened tone. "Third door on the left, Severus"

He did not even bother to offer his thanks. He was so... unnerved. So... unraveled that he all but ran out of the room, feeling all the while as if the Dark Lord himself, or even worse: Nagini, were pursuing him with murderous intent. He found the right door with no effort and dove into the all-white, luxurious but bland refuge that it offered him. The door bolted closed behind him and he sagged, utterly drained of energy, against the clear colored wood...

Time lost all sense of meaning for a moment. He was not aware of it as it crawled away from him while he rested, utterly immobile, against the grounding presence of that firmly closed door.

Then the strong smell of coffee reached his nostrils. Onyx eyes shot open to stare straight ahead as the awareness that his reprieve, this reprieve, was coming to an end fleeted through his mind.

Another heartbeat or two fluttered away before he found within himself strength enough to separate his rigidly held body from the comfort of the securely bolted door.

He used the facilities slowly, every task was stretched to it's limits as he struggled with the disheartening proposition of returning back to Potter.

Finally his hands were washed to new levels of unsullied perfection, almost polished right off their very skin by his own frantic efforts. His face had been splashed with the welcoming coldness of the most frigid water that the elegant spigot could produce and his hair, black and tangled, had been rigidly finger-combed into the kind of submission that so often brought him comfort.

The mirror before him showed the disheartening image of his own ragged visage and he stared, aghast with utter sorrow, at the picture he presented to the world. He was ugly like black sin and thin like a wire. Ghostly pale and almost gaunt, with a veritable curtain of long and inky hair... He looked like the specter of a specter. A hellish monster: all tired dark eyes and tightened pale lips that showed not a smidgen of joy. Of hope. Of life...

He grew weary of his own thoughts and fled the bathroom, forcing the pathetic apparition in the mirror to whirl away in a wobbly arch and disappear. He tried hard to forget that he'd ever seen it, dismissing it firmly to the very back of his mind with every step that he took away from it.

Back in the main room he followed the faint echo of china being banged here and there. Of a drawer being a tad too-forcefully opened. Of loose cutlery being jostled about savagely...

Potter made beverages in the mornings like he fought against Dark Lords. He did it resentfully. Efficiently. With a frightening attention to detail... There were both cream and sugar on the table. A plate with lemon wedges. A magnificent looking cutlery-set that appeared to have been made out of pure silver was resting grandly over a pristine and heavy napkin. There was a narrow, pearl colored cup perched atop a small delicate saucer. Curling wisps of pale steam rising from it...

There were scones on another plate, the smell of them filling the whole kitchen with a strangely homely aroma. Butter waited next to them, right beside an unopened jar of strawberry jam. He wondered if it was mere coincidence or if Potter actually knew that he liked that particular flavor of preserve, that particular brand...

Green eyes settled over his own features with the intensity of a scientist. Whatever the man sought to find within them, obviously absent, as the very next thing to scape from the auror's lips was a disheartened sigh. Strong fingers curled around a wide mug decorated with the most awful, headache-inducing, swirly pattern that Severus had ever seen outside of Albus' own robes. Lean hips settled against the worktop that ran all around the far end of the room and a stubbed chin was pointed towards the fussily set table in a curt expectant nod:

"Tea, Severus. Malfoy said you'd be happy enough with the scones when I fire-called him last night so... don't try to leave them uneaten, just to spite me"

He stood frozen in the doorway, disbelieving dark eyes fixed on that table as the moment simply... stretched. He could not un-think the thought that it had been set for a king. The carefully displayed breakfast seemed more befitting the Minister of Magic, or even a Malfoy than his own uninspiring self...

"Severus?. The tea is getting cold, you know?"

There had been irritated frustration in the voice that called him, a growled quality to it that betrayed a thinly-veiled anger. Potter's knuckles were white around the handle of his tightly held mug and his eyes, those green eyes, were flashing with annoyance.

He frowned at the tone. At the lack of... patience. At the very strong hint of deep displeasure that it was so obviously displaying, but he dared not say a word about it.

He was wary of the boy's odd... mood swings. Weary of the utterly bewildering ease with which Potter could, sometimes, ensnare his own unsettled senses, trap him within the unwelcome miasma of the disconcertingly... intense... emotions that so often swirled within his eyes. He wanted no part of them. Wanted no part of this inexplicable anger, either, and he knew that they'd find themselves embroiled in the most damaging kind of rage-filled argument, if he even dared to call the little jerk on the irrational nature of the unprovoked anger that he was displaying. So he swallowed his own sharp retort with crippling difficulty and entered the room reluctantly.

His thin, long fingers curled around the back of a small and utilitarian dining chair, pulling it away from the table. The resulting screech of wooden legs against ceramic floor was cringe-worthy and his cheeks flushed with the embarrassment of the ungraceful. His black eyes fluttered upwards to the face of the young auror and the expression he saw there unnerved him even further...

"Will you calm yourself down already?. I don't even know what I did back there to spook you that badly, but you've got to relax. Get it into your head that I'M NOT ACTUALLY DOING ANYTHING TO YOU, FOR MERLIN'S SAKE!"

That unjust remonstration rent the air in a frustrated little hiss that rose his hackles. He forgot his good intentions in the blink of an eye, temper flaring to burning point at the indignity of being told off by the little menace.

"Then I'd be grateful if you stop glaring menacingly at me Every. Bloody. Second. That. I. Am. Forced. To. Endure. Your. Company, Auror Potter! "

The respectful side of their thrice-dammed-vow was perilously in danger of being blown into smithereens within the first twenty-four hours of their doomed co-habitation, no less. He was now forced to stare straight into the ghastly face of the kind of failure that cast terrible aspersions over his own ability to control himself. Over his mastery his own temper. Over his ownership of the totality of his own thoughts and desires.

He was a man of his word, for goodness sake!. And the idea, the very intimation that he'd fail so abysmally at something that required nothing from him but self-restraint frayed his already strained nerves to the point of shamed disillusion.

Potter was livid with rage. His eyes flashed and his shoulders shook under the shirt that he must have donned on while Severus himself had been in the bathroom. The expression that was adding thunderous shadows to the youth's rigid features was frightening indeed.

The coffee mug crashed down on to the counter with a loud, ominous thud and Severus' body turned to stone as he stood rooted to the very spot like a lifeless wax figurine...

Widened dark eyes followed the slow curl of those golden fingers against the boy's wide palms. To his utmost dismay a set of perfectly threatening fists began to form before his very eyes. They were strong, white-knuckled weapons that could so easily break him... His thoughts turned then to his mother: so fragile and frightened a woman, so softly spoken and pathetic... The distant memory of a dully-eyed female who used to remain almost always still, to the point of becoming completely unnoticeable fleeted through his mind. She had been nothing short of a despondent, defeated shadow. The very epitome of all those things that he'd always tried so very hard to avoid becoming...

Potter's rage seemed to freeze between one blink and the next. His body suddenly sagged back, against the counter, as if drained of all energy.

"Don't look at me like that, Severus!"

He just reeled. He could not understand that request. But there was something so awfully like relief filling his whole mind with dizzying comfort that he could not even find a cutting response to the child's strange command. He collapsed onto the chair in a pile of weakened limbs, elbows propped on the table and hands supporting his whole head as he just... breathed...

Footsteps echoed in the room. Potter's approach was as unwelcome as it was inevitable. A hand settled over his shoulder and he flinched, tanned fingers curled gently over the dark cloth of the uncomfortably thin shirt that he was wearing.

"If it'll make you feel better I'll confess that I'm sorry for this, Severus. I think... I'm on edge, and I... I'm feeling unusually defensive today, you see?. I'm actually nervous enough to barf!"

That last comment brought him right out of his tense rigidity with a sharp and horrified reproof:

"Potter!"

The auror chuckled and that disturbingly too-warm palm was pulled finally away from his shoulder when the man looped a hand over the backrest of the nearest chair and, bringing it closer with a sharp

tug, proceeded to sit on it, a hair's breath away from Severus' own position.

"Hermione would say that I am “projecting.” But the truth is that I seem to be ruining absolutely EVERYTHING... and I don't even know how!"

Agitation was clear in every syllable of that totally aggravated sentence and Severus wondered what it was, exactly, that the boy wanted to hear. He had no clue as to what to say, anyway. Had precious little inkling as to what the Hell was happening and even less interest in finding that out.

He wanted to retreat. At once, if possible. Hide somewhere far away and think for a long time. He craved the echoing silences of his old chambers. The ease of living by himself with no one to please. The utter simplicity of understanding completely the dark corners of his own mind and navigating his needs easily, freely. With the trouble-free comfort of his own company...

"The tea is cold" He decided to settle on that four-worded non sequitur. A simple but clear break from the awfully disconcerting conversation that they'd been sharing and his companion suddenly dissolved into a fit of giggles.

There was more than a little hysteria to the sound. There was sorrow-filled heartbreak and disappointment. There was a gruff, mirthless bitterness and a touch, only a touch, of genuine self-deprecation.

"The tea is cold..." His own words were repeated back to him in a soft-toned whisper and the apology that followed was even softer. Almost fragile. Heartbroken even: "I am sorry, Severus..."

The silence that followed seemed thick enough to be cut with a blunt knife. A full minute went by without either of them moving. Then Potter took a deep breath that seemed to galvanize him into sudden action. The delicate, pearl colored cup was seized and the auror rose once again. Four restless steps took him back towards the counter and he flicked on a button on the stainless-steel kettle that he must have used before. The soft rumble of heating water filled the silence and Severus still knew not what to say. Or do. Or even think, for that matter. The kettle stopped and the sink's spigot was manipulated into releasing a thick flow of clear water that Lily's child used to rinse the cup manually. He dried the thing manually, too...

-Because of me...- Severus' mind finally made the connection between the lack of magic in the brat's actions and the unfavorable way in which the ward that shielded his left arm reacted to it. He felt humbled by the gesture and even more stressed...

His new beverage was brought back to the table and placed gently before him, like a strange offering.

The auror sat by his side once again, chair too close and thigh almost touching his own in an extremely discomfiting fashion.

"Let's try this again, Severus... Here, have your tea!." The words were intense and expectant. They were growled so close to his ear that he felt each one of them fall over the right side of his face like soft puffs of warmed air.

He picked up the cup with fingers that were visibly trembling and his teeth gritted with the effort not to scream at the miscreant to let him be. He detested the scrutiny of those green eyes. Was dismayed by the awareness that there was some kind of very strange... undercurrent... between them. He was unnerved by that unwelcome discovery. Utterly uncomfortable and, at the very same time, absolutely floored. He could not understand what the Hell was happening here and the whole situation was so fraught with tension that it set his nerves on edge.

The first sip was just too hot and burned his tongue, but he forced himself to swallow. To lower the cup back on to it's saucer and just... Take. A. Very. Deep. Breath.

A whole universe of tension settled within his constricted chest in the ensuing thick silence... After a second or two he forced himself to turn his head minutely towards the menace. Coerced the rigid muscles of his face to abandon the wary expression that they held and embrace once more his trusty mask of polite neutrality. Then, to top it all of, he inflicted upon his lips the unwanted chore of uttering, very... respectfully, the same words that he'd have gladly offered to any person -other than this one, of course!- who'd given him tea:

"The brew is lovely. Thank you, Mr. Potter"

A soft chuckle was the impertinent brat's answer to his efforts and the scowl returned to his own face at once. With extra-force.

"I do not see what is so funny!"

The jerk giggled like a girl, of course. But still... giggling at other people's effort was utterly disrespectful!. Ebony colored eyes shot deadly daggers right into that disconcertingly mirth-filled visage. Potter blinked rather owlishly and smiled brightly at him. It was not the same kind of frigidly cold lift of one's lips that Severus himself used, when forced by circumstances to play the disgustingly incomprehensible games of polite social interaction. No. There was nothing unwilling or polite or even half-way forced to the auror's expression. It was obviously genuine and fond. A smile that could stop broom-traffic without effort. Delighted green fire flashed within a gaze that was far too bright:

"I bet that was hard for you. Harder than having to swallow poison might have been... The brew is lovely, indeed. I bet your stomach just turned inside out from having to say such a thing, Professor. And to me, of all people!"

Severus stiffened in disgruntled outrage. He was absolutely incensed with the brat!. He was trying to fulfill that blasted vow of theirs to the letter and the very thought of having his attempt at... respect... dismissed quite that blatantly burned him bitterly.

"There is no need to crow, Potter!. Let's agree on the point that I can see how my utter humiliation might delight you"

The boy shook his head slightly, brightness fading almost completely from those forest colored eyes.

"Humiliating you is not what this is about, Severus"

His snort was loud and clear in the otherwise silent room and Albus' pet looked right at him with a firm, determined intensity.

"Just because you don't believe me doesn't mean that I'm lying to you, you know?"

He didn't dare answer that. Their loathsome pact might suffer if he did. Salazar alone knew what might actually come out if he dared to open his mouth... and it was Draco's life they had sworn on.

Repressed indignation made him shudder and he lifted that fragile cup to his thin lips.

Taking a sip of the tea eased the moment. The need to offer the boy a fitting response became less urgent and he allowed himself to sigh inwardly.

Potter's restless hand found that awful, unruly hair of his and made it worse. Sheer frustration charged the room in the next blink and he waited for the explosion that was coming, only... it didn't come. Not at all. Not in any way...

He was left holding his tea, sipping it slowly, while that green gaze focused on his face as the silence simply grew. Never had he endured a breakfast as discomfiting as this one. A meal so... disturbingly uneasy... that it twisted his stomach into a knot. Finally the young lungs filled audibly with air, almost as if their owner found it difficult to breathe. Or calm himself. Or maybe both:

"Professor Mcgonagall's coming this evening. She said she needs to talk to you about the school. The Weasleys are coming too. For dinner. Everyone wanted to see you and this seemed the easiest way, you know?. One big bash with everybody present, instead of draining little visits one after the other..."

He blinked slowly and looked at the babbling creature with the kind of disbelieving bewilderment that he'd usually reserved for Albus' crazy plans. Valentine balls and all kinds of disgustingly... cheerful, little celebrations had been an unfortunate weakness of the former headmaster.

"Dinner with the Weasleys...? A big bash?... What on Earth..."

Potter's index finger found the bridge of his nose and scratched at it madly.

"I thought it'd be less tiring for you, that's all. It's been hard keeping everyone away from St Mungo's. You were finally awake and the amount of people wanting to visit you was just... mind-boggling, but you were so weakened that Jones warned us against putting you through that kind of stress, all at once. So... I've been trying to keep everyone away, at least until you were released"

He was forced to abandon his drink, lest he drop that beautiful cup and broke it into a million smithereens. His slender hands fell limply against his lap and curled defensively there: twin white fists of incredulous affront that he found hard to hide, at least completely.

"Are you implying that YOU have been monitoring MY visitors?" He knew that his tone was hard. It was also cutting and displeased, but... By Salazar!, he was actually displeased. And outraged. He was mad enough to scream!. He was so absolutely livid with the high-handed attitude of the little jerk that he had to come to a stand or he'd have throttled the auror right there, in his own kitchen chair!.

Potter cottoned on to the danger that he was in fairly quickly. His whole body backed away the moment he saw Severus trying to stand up and a wary, defensive watchfulness turned his features into a rigidly held mask:

"I'm mostly certain that you didn't want to deal with the delegate of the Quilting Association of Scotland, calling on you to ask for your permission to plaster your face on all of their comforters for the next season, Severus!"

Sheer incredulity cooled his anger and he stood beside the table, as if frozen. A second turned slowly into another before his befuddled brain could even find a single word to offer in response to so ridiculous a claim:

“Why on Earth would ANYONE want to have my face upon their beds?. It's... It's... It's utterly preposterous!"

Potter laughed, bright eyes hard enough to drill holes into the wall.

"You'd be surprised of the kind of things people want from you once they feel they have a right to idolize you"

He shuddered with distaste.

"This would be your handiwork then, auror Potter. No one in their right mind would have ever cared for me in such a disturbing way, if it hadn't been for your interference!"

They both glared at each other with sudden ferociousness, until the gryffindor shook his head with a defeated sigh:

"Why is it that we can't stop arguing, Severus?. I had such wonderful plans for your first day out of the hospital and now... Gosh!... Even serving your bloody tea turned into a battle!"

Reedy shoulders shrugged in a strained, uneasy motion.

"You can't be so blind as to fail to see that we are like oil and water, Mr. Potter. There was no other possibility for us but to engage in constant conflict. I was certain that that had been your purpose all along...”

The boy shrugged almost violently, paling features alive with pained distress.

“My purpose, as you so very delicately put it, was nothing of the kind!. I have spent the last four years of my life seating beside your bed. Dreaming up scenarios of exactly what would happen when you finally woke up. Trust me, Severus, having you upset enough to smash my nose to a pulp was never even on the cards. But then again I am only just starting to find out how very different you really are from the man I dreamed up. You are far harder and so stubborn... It's just... absolutely impossible to reach out to you!"

His jaw clenched in reaction to the dark growl in that voice.

"That's what happens to dreams, Potter. You are so happy while you are having them that you forget that morning must, eventually, return. Then you wake up... I'm not a toy you can play with!. I'm a human being, you see?. And I'm not sorry that I've failed to entertain you, in whichever sickened way you've concocted. I'm here. And I'm me!. You'll get nothing else but this!. Why don't we both learn to accept that and move on before we kill one another?"

Silence settled between them like a smothering thick blanket. Potter looked right at him, green eyes shining like stars made out of moss:

"You are assuming that I find the real you somehow... lacking, Severus!" He finally whispered, voice gone gruff with so much emotion that it sounded like thick gravel.

"I'll move on, of course. I'll have to. But the problem here is not the one you are seeing. You want to fight, yes. But I don't want to and we are clashing so hard because I find it difficult to deal with the fact that you don't see me in the same way that I see you"

He was shocked right into speechlessness. He was trapped, once more, by the confusing vortex of feelings trying to reach out to him, trying to drown him. They were all there: blatantly displayed within the depths of this child's fierce eyes... Emotion swirled outwards from within that ever-darkening gaze and he shuddered from head to toe in bewildered reaction to it.

"I do not want to do this!" He exploded finally. Dark hair swung around his ghostly-white face when he turned his whole head away, pointedly dissociating himself from the confounding creature.

Potter's temper was equally roused and his face turned to stone. His tanned fingers curled in two mighty fists that he placed on the table. He stood then and inclined forwards over the gleaming wood to snarl straight into the side of Severus' head:

"I know that you don't want to do any of this, Professor. But you'll have to, you know?. Whether you decide to go along with me or you struggle to follow, I don't care!. You'll be forced, in the end, to confront this. I'll give you patience and I'll give you time. But I'm not letting it all go until you give me a proper hearing, so... to put your question back to you, Severus, why don't we both learn to accept that, too, and start with the moving on already?"...

TBC...

Ch11

Ch13